Role could be tipping point for new chief of arts foundation

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A music-loving marketing maven will take over the Australia
Business Arts Foundation, the government outfit charged with
boosting private support for the arts.

The foundation's chairman, James Strong, yesterday announced
that Kathy Keele would succeed the executive director, Winsome
McCaughey, who has resigned after seven years in one of the most
lucrative jobs in the arts.

Speaking from her Melbourne office, where she has been Siemens
Ltd's executive general manager of marketing, communications and
strategic development, Keele declined to outline specific plans for
the arts foundation before taking up the post in a few months.

The foundation has been drafting a six-year business plan with
the aim of getting more government funding to provide leverage in
the community.

Keele says the foundation "clearly has built a really strong
base, with a lot of [corporate] councillors, and a strong focus on
volunteering, giving and partnerships".

She praised the foundation's annual black-tie award dinner, a
flashy affair which attracts the top echelons of business and
politics - often the prime minister - to a single arts
function.

Keele's tenure as head of Telstra's marketing left her undaunted
about working with government, saying it would add "a useful
perspective" to the arts and business work.

Keele's first association with the foundation came as a
volunteer through its adviceBank service. Her pro bono gig with the
Australian Chamber Orchestra, which she had attended and "just
loved" for years, turned into a lasting relationship when she was
asked to be on the orchestra's board.

The orchestra's chairman and head of Transfield Holdings, Guido
Belgiorno-Nettis, yesterday called Keele "a very strategic person,
very thoughtful person who wants to understand the dynamics of
things". He would regret her leaving the board while Keele was also
sad to leave. But, says Belgiorno-Nettis, "she's going to make a
very great contribution to business and the arts" through the
foundation.

Keele, who came to Australia from the US in 1991, said she was
not a musician but "a listener and a great appreciator", as well as
an avid reader and theatre-goer. She's reading A Fine
Balance by Rohinton Mistry, a biography of Bill Clinton, and,
perhaps tellingly, Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point: How
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, which the chief
executive of Siemens in Germany had given her with the words, "it
changed my life". She's changing her life to take a role where the
aim is to turn a bit of money into a lot more for the arts.

Keele declined to reveal whether the arts foundation needed more
funding, saying only: "There is so much need for resources in the
arts - the more money you have, the more you're going to be able to
make a difference."